Happy New Year! New Photos and a Picture of an Older and Younger Me

Happy New Year!  First shot of the new year!

My Christmas present came in from getting framed!  It is now hanging in my studio:

Well it has been quite a while since I have blogged.  I have been building shelves in the studio and built a some closet space since we lost a closet do to a new water heater!  We love our landlords!

 I took a little break, though not from photography!  I have been quite active on that front.  I finally got my new lens.  A Sigma 150-600mm lens.  The furthest I could get was 100mm so it extended my reach quite a bit.  And a full moon was on the horizon.  One of my first shots:

It was quite windy outside, but I was able to stabilize everything.  Of course a 6 pound lens can shake pretty easy!  And then the next day I was able to take one of my favorite kind of creative shots.  I love these shots.  I changed the temperature balance to make it more green (red looks great too!)

And this shot was out our living room window.  The great thing, it is through a screen, which the lens takes right out of focus.  Ginger liked the blue!

So one of the big projects that I have been wanting to work on is below.  It began with an idea.  Of course I had to ask some help from my Mom and Dad.  I needed some old photos of me.  The original idea was to have them send them to me digitally.  But even better, I got the pictures!  So with my high powered camera I was able to take some shots of the pictures, which I could then import into Photoshop.  Of course then I had to take a shot of me now.  I was actually just practicing when I got this shot of me.  Ginger loved it.  So then I had to start adding me into the picture, decide on a background, and then "age" me.  I originally had a Georgetown picture as the background but the original background just worked.  Along with the look on my face, which again, Ginger just loved. 

So you would think that the idea came from a song like Mercy Me's Dear Younger Me.   Nah, not that simple.  It actually started with hearing about a young man who was struggling with fitting in.  He listened to Christian Metal, though more of the thrash kind.  So I listened to some of that music to get a feel for what he was listening to.  He actually took one of the songs and converted it to piano music, it was beautiful.  So listening to some of it, I came across a song called I Am Stone by Demonhunter, a Christian metal band.  The thing is, the song is not metal, it is almost acoustic.  And all these circumstances came together to give me the idea of a picture of a younger and older me.  The wheel's began to turn.  I am not saying this picture is perfect, but that wasn't the point.   It was this:

I see myself at that age and know I had such a wonderful childhood.  I was a cute kid, but small.  If I could tell myself something from the future to that little boy well, I would say it is going to turn out alright.  You have wonderful parents who love you with all their heart.  You have a brother who you would do anything for. Yeah, I know you have your fights like brothers do, but one day your going to cherish the fact that you have him as your brother.   Your gonna have some hard times.  But God is going to see you through.  You are stone.  Molding stone can be painful but your gonna turn out like this.  Your gonna get that beard like Dad.  Your gonna get a beautiful wife who loves you with all her heart and is going to be the girl of your dreams, and she is gonna be like Mom, and Mom and Dad will love her. Remember that first bird house you made, and you cried because it looked horrible and Dad fixed it?  Well, your gonna become really good fixing things and make a living doing it.  And those art classes your parents took you too, well, they are gonna help you one day become a photographer.  And you know how we use to sit around the table after dinner and read lessons from the Bible out of that book?  Your gonna remember those.  And that is gonna help you come back from a walk in the wilderness.  And I know your small now, and people will make fun of you, but your gonna fill out my little one and your gonna get muscles. I am not gonna tell you everything your going to go through but it will help you become who you are today and help others.   You will have friends, a wonderful church, a Bible study group you adore, and a special group that will touch your heart.  So keep your head up.  And that jacket, it is your favorite, I remember.  Always remember, you are loved because even now, at 48, you are just as loved.


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